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Updated: Mar 28, 2022

IGO720 Game Development - Week 1 - Development

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Figure 1: Illustration of a Game Developer (Eduonix, 2021)

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Most Challenging Module Yet


This first year of a part-time course is flying by. One moment you are learning about the significance of marketing and business impacts towards games and the next, you are academically thrown into the pit of core design and disciplines, that defines the meaning of game development. Each week, we will be covering a key aspect that will aid in building upon a single-player digital prototype. This will begin by planning and implementing our own game mechanics, followed by narrative, artwork, animation, level and sound design.


Towards the end of the module, we must distribute our prototypes for user testing and in return, implement any improvements through player feedback. We are not expected to be professionals in each role. The goal here is to gain enough experience, knowledge and a personal one, confidence to go out into the gaming industry and develop games like a proper indie. Looking back at my previous modules, I aim to make time management key throughout this module.


That means enusuring my weekly forum and activity posts are shared and up to date, building upon my upcoming prototype and reflecting the good, bad, and next steps to progression. I have lacked in this goal since I started the course as it does take some adjusting to with other commitments outside of my studies to stick to a schedule. I want to make this module the best one yet, as I feel it will enable me to piece together the different roles and carry each of them out to the best of my abilities.


I have an idea in what I want to do with a game in this module, which is quite rare for me since I usually struggle with coming up with a name. All shall be revealed in the weeks to come, as I want to ensure this proposed idea can be developed upon with my current expertise. To assist in measuring my skills, A useful model known as 'T-Shaped People' (Jason Yip, 2018) was shared with us to research. Instead of being an expert in one area (I-shaped) or knowing nothing in anything (Genralist), T-shaped is an expert in one area, as well as having the capability to do other things, Also known as a 'Generalizing specialist'. Below is an illustration of the various models.


Figure 2: I-shaped, Generalist and T-shaped Model (Jason Yip, 2018)

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Bear in mind that these models do not define our only levels of skill, but an estimate in what we currently know and how far we can improve. Take myself for instance, I take into account my level of skills through the T model, making me a generalist? perhaps. I feel alot of my knowledge is with design, but have the the strong potential to excel in other areas like programming and animation. That being said if design was a single line, I would be the I model. In this instance, I'll accept the T model.

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Roles WIthin Game Development


The first spark forum of the module encouraged us to think about each role within game development and the skills required to carry them out. This has been given to us through questions, as well as an optional expertise graph see what shape our skills make. Below is an illustration of my expertise graph with a retro and personal touch.


Figure 3: Expertise Graph (Kyle Cornwell, 2022)

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1. Which of the seven game devleopment skills in this module do you think you already have? If you remember from the previous page, the seven skills are game design, programming, narrative design, art, animation, level and sound design.


I would consider that I have a few design elements of game development under my indie belt. This is down to my passion and creativity towards games. Give me a story to come up with and I'll end up turning the game into a book with such narrative detail! I find level design and modelling quite relaxing as it's another element that takes me away. Sound is essential in design but does need some brushing up on.


2. Which of the seven skills are you most excited to learn?


Programming is a must for this module to learn more about. I would like to touch up on some animation and art work. Art only goes as far as a design document filled with crazy concept art. Animation has been tested in my last prototypes for simple events, which usually makes me resolve to usng game-engine physics. it would be nice to see these skills flourish most, especially programming to script code without having a fear of every line having errors or null-exceptions!



3. How do you know how you are at each discipline? Bear in mind the 'Dunning-Kruger effect'. whereby people often overestimate their ability at a particular task due to their lack of knowledge in that domain.


Game Design - I know this is my strongest discipline due to the majority of my undergraduate studies, concentrating on core design phases from small projects to a large studio creation. I was assigned to world building (the most challenging area of design) which meant the whole team would rely on my ideas to create a game based on my story, characters and time setting.


Programming - Programming is a love and hate discipline since I started making games. There are ground breaking moments where the slightest event makes me feel like an professional. There is also the 'Crash and Burn' errors that have broken the majority of projects in the past, mainly down to not looking into scripts I have sourced from online and ensuring that they will link together. I have stuck to learning C# since its relationship with Unity to me is primary. In the future, I would like to learn some C++, but I need to overcome C# basics to a proficient level.


Narrative Design - Narrative design is again, an innovative side to my skills in game development. I like setting the foundations of a story, usually with a players journey being unknown and redeeming their purpose as you progress. I have a tendency to add twists to my games to create illusion in discovering a hidden truth. Writing is essential to give that area of design some contextual flavour.


Art Direction - Art is something I need to dabble more with. I mentioned how modelling is relaxing. This discipline only applies with my skills using Blender/3ds Max and Photoshop between low poly models and importing realistic textures. Concept art is a favourite of mine from paper sketches, to digital mockups. I also find Pixel-art interesting. Art is on the same level as programming and in league to recieve so much more potential.


Animation - Animation is an interesting discipline. I have always struggled with animation mechanics and characters over the years. My best experience is adding Fbx models into Adobe Mixamo to bypass any manual character rigging. I can make simple transitions and have developed my first ever cutscene for my final major project. I did want to get into cinemachine and timeline plugins in unity but always came across as complicated. I would like to work more on this as its my lowest skill.


Level Design - Another design discipline. I have designed a few levels for various game types from 2D tilemaps, to 3D first-person horrors. This has involved making particle effects, lighting and detailing an environment with realistic assets. I would like to know more about how skyboxes work and a refresher in how to import asset files. This will become essential towards the type of project I aim to develop.


Sound Design - Sound is a discipline I have a mixed experience with. I only knew how to make background music play on a game menu up until 3 years ago, where I experienced how to use a middleware program known as Wwise and how to integrate a soundbank into both Unity and Unreal engines. I am familiar with the different classes of sound (Atmos, Character, Interactive, dialogue and SFX). I would like to experiment with Unity's own sound plugins this time and may consider using Wwise for future projects.

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Skills Audit


To kickstart this module, the first activity tasked us with auditing our current technical skills. We were provided a template to demonstrate the skills we know and the skills we need to learn. This template is meant to be a foundational guide over the next 12 weeks to practice and improve our ability to research and learn independently, also referred to as 'Heutagogical' skills. Each statement in the template has a choice of CONFIDENT if it applies to ourselves, or NOT YET with a resource link to use as research the specific topic.


1. I can take mouse, keyboard, touch screen or gamepad inputs and use them to control objects in a game engine of my choice.


CONFIDENT



2. I can set up physics components (such as colliders and rigid bodies) in my game engine and trigger an event to happen when two game objects collide.


CONFIDENT



3. I can use code to spawn new objects while the game is running (eg create bullets).


CONFIDENT



4. I can set up an animation in my chosen game engine and control it with code and / or with a state machine.


NOT YET



5. I can use level design tools to block-out a level in my chosen game engine.


NOT YET



6. I can use my game engine’s pathfinding system (if it has one) to create enemies and NPCs that chase or follow the player.


NOT YET



7. I can code basic game logic (eg comparing two numbers) to create win and lose conditions.


CONFIDENT



8. I can configure particle systems to create different visual effects (eg fire, snow).


CONFIDENT



9. I can use appropriate software to create appealing character sprites or models.


CONFIDENT



10. I can use appropriate software to create atmospheric environment sprites or models.


NOT YET



11. I can create character animations, such as walking and jumping, and bring them into my game engine.


CONFIDENT



12. I can use appropriate software to design clear user-interfaces.


CONFIDENT


13. I can find / record / edit, sound effects and music.


CONFIDENT


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Reflection


The first week has been intriguing, especially measuring my own strengths and weaknesses within each role of game development. I aim to improve upon the skills I lack knowledge and experience in, such as programming and animation which are integral for my choice of game. I like being quite hands-on when it comes to projects so I consider this to be a luxury, getting to work around each department and contribute towards a potential creation I have wanted to develop for a long time. I intend to maintain a schedule for each role in the weeks to come, focusing on core elements to be implemented so that the main concept functions to a playable standard. I think this project will become alot clearer in terms of direction as each week take place, but I'm feeling a sturdy level of confidence to make a start.

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References:


Jason Yip, 2018. Why T-shaped people? [Online] Available at: https://jchyip.medium.com/why-t-shaped-people-e8706198e437 [Last Accessed 09/02/2022]


Code Monkey, 2021. How to use NEW Input System Package! (Unity Tutorial - Keyboard, Mouse, Touch, Gamepad). [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjee_e4fICc


Jason Weimann, 2019. Unity3D Physics - Rigidbodies, Colliders, Triggers. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLYTwDQmjdo


Renaissance Coders, 2017. Unity C# Creating and Deleting Objects. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO-E6QaTniQv


iHeartGameDev, 2020. How to Animate Characters in Unity 3D | Animator Explained. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vApG8aYD5aI


Brackeys, 2019. MAKING YOUR FIRST LEVEL in Unity with ProBuilder! [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtzIXCKr8Wo&t=860s


Brackeys, 2018. Unity NavMesh Tutorial - Basics. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHV1ymlw-P8


Arzifact Studios, 2019. Let's Make A Game In Unity - #UnityTutorial #5 "Win/Lose". [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OuYKYym2EM


Normical Games, 2019. Creating Basic Particle Effects in Unity. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hRWhnL1IVk&t=209s


Surfaced Studio, 2017. MODELLING For Absolute Beginners - Blender Tutorial. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICBP-7x7Chc


Ducky 3D, 2019. Blender - Easy Low Poly Environment in Eevee (Blender 2.8) [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gyts71XMtw


The CG Essentials, 2021. Import FREE Rigged and Animated Characters into Blender with the Adobe Mixamo Add-On. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDc-E-o_I-c


Game Dev Guide, 2020. Making UI That Looks Good In Unity.n [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwdweCX5aMI&t=4s


Brackeys, 2017. Introduction to AUDIO in Unity. [last viewed 09/02/2022] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OT43pvUyfY&t=4s

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